Interesting. Though it'll take a lot more to convince me that the Mass Effect series is worth coming back to, after the god awful gakky mess they made of ME3's ending.
I'm assuming that this is a sequel right? They said they'd come back to the series, so its cool that they are. Even though Shepard was the only Human Specter that character may not necessarily by them, we'll see. If this is a sequel though I'm assuming that Shepard will be in it given that the ending where organic life survives in the galaxy in its current state is the only one where they're shown to live.
Anyhow, if its in the same style as the previous games (and not say an RTS or something) I'd be up for this. Lots to look forward to from what I've seen at E3 so far.
...Though hmn, will this require a save transfer? If so then I think at this point I may as well never delete my damn save files for Bioware games ever. =P
Wyrmalla wrote: I'm assuming that this is a sequel right? They said they'd come back to the series, so its cool that they are. Even though Shepard was the only Human Specter that character may not necessarily by them, we'll see. If this is a sequel though I'm assuming that Shepard will be in it given that the ending where organic life survives in the galaxy in its current state is the only one where they're shown to live.
Shepard having been "the only Human Specter" wouldn't really mean anything. N7 is a human rank designation, not one from the Council/Specters.
And it's got to be a sequel. Did you notice the jump?
There was no mass relay.
Ah, so the Mass Relays have been replaced by something that allows people to travel even further (the existing relays probably would allow for that too, they were just set up so they didn't). Hmn, I'm wondering where it came from then as it certainly wouldn't be made by the Reapers. Why? Because if the Reapers had an alternative to Mass Relays then they would have used it in the third game instead of travelling in the conventional manner.
See I took that line "a new galaxy" as just them saying they're updating the existing one, but yes it could mean an entirely new one outside of the Milky Way. Hmn, strange, I would like to see more done with our existing galaxy and all its nooks, but I suppose we'll see what happens.
Judging by the name and tag line, the lack of a Mass Relay is probably because they're in the Andromeda Galaxy (The closest Galaxy too the Milky Way). The stuff at the end looked a lot like Prothean Tech.
New story unrelated to the last set of games. It's in a new part of space and will have a focus on exploration. Basically they are going back to their roots. Star control.
Wyrmalla wrote: I'm assuming that this is a sequel right? They said they'd come back to the series, so its cool that they are. Even though Shepard was the only Human Specter that character may not necessarily by them, we'll see. If this is a sequel though I'm assuming that Shepard will be in it given that the ending where organic life survives in the galaxy in its current state is the only one where they're shown to live.
Anyhow, if its in the same style as the previous games (and not say an RTS or something) I'd be up for this. Lots to look forward to from what I've seen at E3 so far.
...Though hmn, will this require a save transfer? If so then I think at this point I may as well never delete my damn save files for Bioware games ever. =P
Ashley and Kaiden can become Spectres, though its determinant depending on your actions. So no, by the end of ME3 Shepard is not the only human spectre.
Wyrmalla wrote: I'm assuming that this is a sequel right? They said they'd come back to the series, so its cool that they are. Even though Shepard was the only Human Specter that character may not necessarily by them, we'll see. If this is a sequel though I'm assuming that Shepard will be in it given that the ending where organic life survives in the galaxy in its current state is the only one where they're shown to live.
Anyhow, if its in the same style as the previous games (and not say an RTS or something) I'd be up for this. Lots to look forward to from what I've seen at E3 so far.
...Though hmn, will this require a save transfer? If so then I think at this point I may as well never delete my damn save files for Bioware games ever. =P
Ashley and Kaiden can become Spectres, though its determinant depending on your actions. So no, by the end of ME3 Shepard is not the only human spectre.
It was implied that they were naming spectres left and right in 3. Even Conrad became one.
angelofvengeance wrote: I never liked Kaidan to be honest. Too annoying and whiney for my liking. Ashley had more sass and was more fun.
Oi don't knock Kaidan. I couldn't wait to bump off Ashley however... (like seriously I couldn't press the kill button quicker) That whole bit where she's whining about being Christian and how nobody likes her because of that just made me want to slap her. =P
angelofvengeance wrote: I never liked Kaidan to be honest. Too annoying and whiney for my liking. Ashley had more sass and was more fun.
Oi don't knock Kaidan. I couldn't wait to bump off Ashley however... (like seriously I couldn't press the kill button quicker) That whole bit where she's whining about being Christian and how nobody likes her because of that just made me want to slap her. =P
My theory, if the first Mass Effect trilogy is based on Star Trek, this one is going to go for a Stargate Atlantis / Universe sort of thing.
Perhaps, as a backup plan, the Protheans 'hacked' a mass relay, trying to evacuate them to another galaxy. Of course, not too many people managed to do it (Hadn't the Protheans broken down into isolated 'cells' by the end?) But enough to build the start of a new civilisation in the Andromeda Galaxy.
Humanity, post Reaper invasion, discovers this in the Mars Archives, launches an expedition...
Boom, new galaxy, new setting. No need to worry about that pesky fallout from the previous trilogy, except from a few lines of incidental dialogue that are kept vague enough so that you don't know what happened to Shepard.
A whole new galaxy to explore, with millions of different choices to make that can completely alter the shape of the cosmos AND THEN BE TOTALLY RENDERED MOOT BY THE STUPID fething ENDING!
Compel wrote: My theory, if the first Mass Effect trilogy is based on Star Trek, this one is going to go for a Stargate Atlantis / Universe sort of thing.
Perhaps, as a backup plan, the Protheans 'hacked' a mass relay, trying to evacuate them to another galaxy. Of course, not too many people managed to do it (Hadn't the Protheans broken down into isolated 'cells' by the end?) But enough to build the start of a new civilisation in the Andromeda Galaxy.
Humanity, post Reaper invasion, discovers this in the Mars Archives, launches an expedition...
Boom, new galaxy, new setting. No need to worry about that pesky fallout from the previous trilogy, except from a few lines of incidental dialogue that are kept vague enough so that you don't know what happened to Shepard.
That's essentially the "Ark Theory" that was getting thrown around.
BioWare shut that down heavily. According to them, every asset that could be was involved with the Reaper War Effort and building the big ol' superweapon.
Assuming nothing has changed drastically from the last I heard on this, it's set post-Reaper War--something like 140 years post-Reaper War.
You're definitely spot on in regards to it being more akin to Stargate Atlantis though...just not with a Prothean civilization surviving.
If they're smart, and we know BioWare can be sometimes, they'll do it far enough in the future that the Reaper-War is spoken of in reverence and in history books. That way it leaves them open to reference some of the characters and still keep it fresh.
Here's hoping EA doesn't ruin another BioWare title by demanding they release it 6 months early.
I feel like ME:3 gets something of a bad rap. Yes the final cutscene did not specifically mention your choices but literally every moment leading up to it did! While the Catalyst weirdness was a really awkward shoe-horn with zero foreshadowing and no real impact on everything else, I ultimately care far more for the 20+ hours of story that take place before the last 15 minutes and those 20+ hours were extremely solid imho
Agreed, the series as a whole out weighed the ending for sure. Though I will say I liked the ending and enjoyed the idea of all that you worked for and built was still not enough in the end. Made sense to me, the whole series let you know that literal countless other civilizations tried to win and didn't. What made you think Shepard was going to and then ride into the sunset on his horse with his lady/man? All of ME3 was foreshadowing death. Its tone was one of Shepard saying good bye because he knew in the end there was going to be a sacrifice.
Or at least that is precisely how I felt when playing the game lol.
Now bring on 4! So I can go on to play the only game series I like anymore next to fallout and elder scrolls.
Gasmasked Mook wrote: I feel like ME:3 gets something of a bad rap. Yes the final cutscene did not specifically mention your choices but literally every moment leading up to it did! While the Catalyst weirdness was a really awkward shoe-horn with zero foreshadowing and no real impact on everything else, I ultimately care far more for the 20+ hours of story that take place before the last 15 minutes and those 20+ hours were extremely solid imho
It has to do with a number of different factors, the foremost of which is that the plot is what the entire story has been leading up to. So the little tiny segment at the end is just as important for plot reasons as the "middle" that precedes it. Because it's a game, you can still have a ton of fun getting there. But depending on how much you focus on the plot vs how much you focus on the gameplay, the climax will have varying degrees of importance to your enjoyment of the game.
Personally, I thought that it started to get a bit weak on the Assari homeworld. It didn't help that the designated opponent in this game - i.e. whatshisname that worked for the Elusive Man - was rather boring (the fact that the thing that first pops to mind when I think of him is Shepard's taunt - "Why do you keep running away?" - says an awful lot). But the plot didn't absolutely fall on its face until Ghost Child.
In any event, different people are going to focus on different things. I tend to enjoy plots a lot. So a weak climax, like this one, rubs me more strongly that it would other people. Additionally, one of the things that I've learned is that people who had already learned going in that the ending sucked weren't as affected by it as heavily as those who found out the hard way. Reduced expectations meant that the weakness of the ending didn't affect them as much.
As for the new game -
Not much to say yet, obviously. I'll keep an eye on it. I'm not going nuts over it like I once would have, but I'll keep an eye on it. Unfortunately, the trailer doesn't say anything more than the fact that the game is coming. Hopefully we'll have more info soon.
BrotherGecko wrote: Agreed, the series as a whole out weighed the ending for sure. Though I will say I liked the ending and enjoyed the idea of all that you worked for and built was still not enough in the end. Made sense to me, the whole series let you know that literal countless other civilizations tried to win and didn't. What made you think Shepard was going to and then ride into the sunset on his horse with his lady/man? All of ME3 was foreshadowing death. Its tone was one of Shepard saying good bye because he knew in the end there was going to be a sacrifice.
Or at least that is precisely how I felt when playing the game lol.
Now bring on 4! So I can go on to play the only game series I like anymore next to fallout and elder scrolls.
Hmm, what could have made people think they might win where others had failed. Could it have been that the first two games were straight-up Space Operas, the second of which specifically focused on a supposedly-impossible task achieved by Shepard & Co using the ol' "power of putting your differences aside for the greater good" trope, and the third game spent most of its runtime apparently following that same trope?
The reason for the disconnect is simple; the guy who wrote the first game and co-wrote the second game didn't write the third, that was the other guy who co-wrote the second, and he is apparently the kind of writer than enjoys the sort of sci-fi that loves the smell of its own farts so much it disappears up its own arse.
"All of your efforts are as naught, because life is merely unending disappointment piled upon ze cadavers of ze lies we tell ourselves to hold back ze existential darkness of ze soul. Wow, I am le super deep."
Hmm, what could have made people think they might win where others had failed.
I've talked to quite a few people who disliked the ending, and not one of them was thrown over by the above. All of them went in thinking that Shepard was not getting out alive.
People keep bringing it up when trying to explain why the people who hate the ending are wrong, but it doesn't apply at all.
On a related note, I got an e-mail today for the SWTOR expansion that's releasing later this year, and they made a point of emphasizing a return to Bioware storytelling (close paraphrase). It made me wonder if there's been a decision at Bioware recently to compare their more recent plots with older ones. I don't know how well Inquisition's story was received, but the DA2 and ME3 stories both received lots of complaints. If there has been a shift in storytelling philosophy at Bioware, then it should be noticeable in the upcoming ME game.
As long as ME:4 keeps the surprisingly addictive multiplayer and runs a competent story I believe I will be relatively satisfied.
If ME:4 is a technical sequel or at least a continuation set in the future I wonder which ending will become the official one. Or is it possible that it simply won't get mentioned.
I'm not convinced it is some sort of later future with greater technology yet. Mostly because we don't (I believe) what the warp sequence in the trailer is refering to precisely and also because the protagonist is bearing the N7 designation. Which would be odd to think the post reaper war remnants of earth's military would continue the use of a service code for a special operations school far into the future.
Hopefully they will try to bridge the rpg style system of the first game with the better combat flow of the 3rd game. Along with pulling back to the roots of exploration that the 1st was built on. So I guess mostly they should just go and revisit why they were successful with the 1st game. Maybe even see this new game as a reset of sorts and have the series play out in a way that they fully intended.
Hmm, what could have made people think they might win where others had failed.
I've talked to quite a few people who disliked the ending, and not one of them was thrown over by the above. All of them went in thinking that Shepard was not getting out alive.
People keep bringing it up when trying to explain why the people who hate the ending are wrong, but it doesn't apply at all.
Shepard getting out alive isn't necessary for the player to feel they've succeeded. Constructing an ending that doesn't make most or all of your character's actions in the narrative thus far pointless, however, is. Also useful is an ending that doesn't destroy the civilisations you have ostensibly been fighting to save, and which doesn't reduce three games worth of fighting and sacrifice and alliances wrought in pain and blood to "pick a colour, watch a cutscene, trite ennui, le fin".
The problem with ME3's ending wasn't that Shepard died, or that it tried to do something interesting and high-concept, it's that it failed to pull it off and, worse, felt like the writer had zero regard or respect for the time and emotional investment players had put into the story and characters over the course of three games. The guy tried to bolt 2001-esque existentialist mumbling on to the end of a well-executed but pretty boilerplate action space opera, and the result was both incongruous and disappointing for the people who had been given every expectation by the narrative up to that point that they would be able to shut down the game at the end feeling like they'd won, rather than like they'd just been forced to watch a highschool philosophy student's short film about angst.
The problem with ME3's ending is that they literally put a god in the machine. As if the phrase Deus Ex Machina wasn't literal enough, they went and put a god in a machine, that invalidated the bulk of the previous two plots in the series by introducing a massive plot hole from nowhere, and basically reduced the sum of a decade of gaming to multicolor.
mattyrm wrote: A whole new galaxy to explore, with millions of different choices to make that can completely alter the shape of the cosmos AND THEN BE TOTALLY RENDERED MOOT BY THE STUPID fething ENDING!
Seriously, I'm still sour about ME3....
Spoiler:
Sometimes, the future is inevitable. The life of one man is nothing more than the merest ripple on the surface of the galaxy.
Me? I will be there with bells on. I loved every aspect of the Mass Effect series, including the ending of 3, which presented exactly the choices I was expecting to get. Everything in the previous games was leading up to that decision.
If ME:4 is a technical sequel or at least a continuation set in the future I wonder which ending will become the official one. Or is it possible that it simply won't get mentioned.
I think it will be Destroy, if it is mentioned. I doubt it would be synthesis. If they still want a multi-racial team with some of the old races as well as new ones then having them all be weird biosynthetic hybrids would be a bad move. People want their Krogan to be Krogan, their Turians to be Turians, their scientist Salarians to be someone who has studied species turian, asari and batarian, etc.
Today we debuted the first cinematic trailer for our next game, Mass Effect™: Andromeda. While we are still many months away from the game’s release date in holiday 2016, we’re excited to show you a bit of where we’re at. First, though, some background on the game itself.
When we wrapped up the original Mass Effect trilogy with Mass Effect 3: Citadel in early 2013, planning and design on Mass Effect: Andromeda was already well underway. We knew we wanted to start with a foundation composed of the best parts of any Mass Effect game: exciting new worlds to discover, great characters, and intense action. At the same time, we clearly wanted to expand the definition of what you should expect from a Mass Effect game.
While we aren’t ready to go into too many details just yet, as you saw in the trailer and can tell by the name, this game is very much a new adventure, taking place far away from and long after the events of the original trilogy. You will play a human, male or female, though that’s actually not the character you saw in the trailer (more on that later). You’ll be exploring an all-new galaxy, Andromeda, and piloting the new and improved Mako you saw. And through it all, you will have a new team of adventurers to work with, learn from, fight alongside of, and fall in love with.
We built this trailer in Frostbite™, our game engine, and it represents our visual target for the final game. We are thrilled by what we’ve already been able to achieve in bringing Mass Effect to Frostbite and by putting our entire focus on PC and current gen consoles. With the time remaining in development, we’re excited about the possibility to push things even more.
Thank you again for all of the support you keep showing us, and we’re looking forward to sharing more details with you near the end of the year. Until then, the teams in our Montreal, Edmonton, and Austin studios will be hard at work creating an entirely new adventure for you to lose yourselves in.
Thanks,
Aaryn Flynn, Studio General Manager, BioWare Canada
Melissia wrote: Funny you should say that. My computer has a dual core from ~2006.
So does mine.
I'm running an old E8400. And it's starting to become an issue...
/sigh
Intel should be releasing its next round of processors (Skylake) a few months from now, and I would expect that'll shake up Intel's line a bit - hopefully even bring the prices down on the current batch that they're selling.
As for ME3 endings and ME4, I suspect that they're following the example set in Deus Ex: Invisible War - i.e. leaving things vague enough that you can't really tell which option was chosen. The new game is set in Andromeda Galaxy, and the Reapers appear to have been purely a threat to the Milky Way. So there's no way to tell whether they were Destroyed or Controlled without a character explicitly stating (which they won't). And Shepard was already half synthetic himself, following his rebuild at the start of ME2, so there will be enough cybernetics floating around in characters to obscure whether or not the Synthesis ending was chosen.
Melissia wrote: Funny you should say that. My computer has a dual core from ~2006.
Assuming you're not joking(I'm bad at detecting that) - I'm honestly not coming at this from a snooty "LULZ PC MASTA RACE DAWG" position, but; you're not really hoping you'll be able to play a brand new game on a next-gen engine using hardware that's ten years old, are you? I mean, I know a lot of people have developed pretty unrealistic expectations about PC gaming in recent years thanks to WoW and the major devs neutering their PC offerings so they''d still function on the previous generation of consoles, but ten years?
I can only afford to upgrade my gaming rig on a five year cycle(sometimes three years if I go with midrange parts), and even that I have to accept that by the time I'm into year four or so there will be games my PC is struggling to play at all, nevermind at reasonable graphical fidelity. By the time ME4 is out you may well need an entirely new PC to run it properly, considering by then Win10 and DX12(which will require new graphics cards) will be fully released(and you can bet Microsoft will be paying through the nose for devs to optimise their games' performance for DX12 first and foremost).
streamdragon wrote: Given it's EA, that's basically guaranteed. I mean, ME2 and 3 came out on PC. PSx didn't get the ME games until ME3 was coming out I think?
ME2 was released on the PS3. PS3 players were automatically shunted into the default starting path (which, from what I understand, generally meant that Shepard screwed up a *lot* in the first game), until later on when the "pick your choices" add-on was released shortly before ME3 came out.
streamdragon wrote: Given it's EA, that's basically guaranteed. I mean, ME2 and 3 came out on PC. PSx didn't get the ME games until ME3 was coming out I think?
ME2 was released on the PS3. PS3 players were automatically shunted into the default starting path (which, from what I understand, generally meant that Shepard screwed up a *lot* in the first game), until later on when the "pick your choices" add-on was released shortly before ME3 came out.
Yeah, wasn't Wrex dead as standard in ME2? Worst choice ever!
In my first ME2 playthrough, that was the state I had. Kaiden dead, Wrex dead... my first ME3 playthrough was even worse, as both Legion and Jack had bought the farm in the Suicide Mission.
Can't wait for this.. my only hope is its not too far ahead as I'd love to see some of the trilogy characters pop up.. such as EDI or a Matriarch Liara.
Morathi's Darkest Sin wrote: Can't wait for this.. my only hope is its not too far ahead as I'd love to see some of the trilogy characters pop up.. such as EDI or a Matriarch Liara.
Liara might put in an appearence. But EDI will most likely not show up, as one of the ME3 endings explicitly killed her.
streamdragon wrote: Given it's EA, that's basically guaranteed. I mean, ME2 and 3 came out on PC. PSx didn't get the ME games until ME3 was coming out I think?
ME2 was released on the PS3. PS3 players were automatically shunted into the default starting path (which, from what I understand, generally meant that Shepard screwed up a *lot* in the first game), until later on when the "pick your choices" add-on was released shortly before ME3 came out.
Not only that, but by making you choose the bad choices from the first game, you were forced into making bad ones in the second too. IIRC Mass Effect 3 and DragonAge: Inquisition both included the choose your choices thing by default, so if this new game is expecting you to have a save file I'll assume they'll include that tool as well.
Eugh, though seriously, who here still has a save from Mass Effect 3? IIRC there was at least a mod that allowed you to go through and check boxes in the second for every little thing you could have done. That tool thing didn't include everything, whereas that mod allowed you to act like you'd played the first game (down to how much resources you had).
streamdragon wrote: Given it's EA, that's basically guaranteed. I mean, ME2 and 3 came out on PC. PSx didn't get the ME games until ME3 was coming out I think?
ME2 was released on the PS3. PS3 players were automatically shunted into the default starting path (which, from what I understand, generally meant that Shepard screwed up a *lot* in the first game), until later on when the "pick your choices" add-on was released shortly before ME3 came out.
Not only that, but by making you choose the bad choices from the first game, you were forced into making bad ones in the second too. IIRC Mass Effect 3 and DragonAge: Inquisition both included the choose your choices thing by default, so if this new game is expecting you to have a save file I'll assume they'll include that tool as well.
Eugh, though seriously, who here still has a save from Mass Effect 3? IIRC there was at least a mod that allowed you to go through and check boxes in the second for every little thing you could have done. That tool thing didn't include everything, whereas that mod allowed you to act like you'd played the first game (down to how much resources you had).
Before ME3 was released, Bioware released an application that ran you through some of the more significant decisions in ME1, and let you choose which option you wanted to go with. So even PS3 players could start ME3 with an optimal save.
As for ME3 saved games for ME4...
I suspect that you needn't worry about it. DA:I basically threw saves out the window, and let players create their own save states to import. In fact, you could *not* import a save from DA2 to DA:I. The game wouldn't let you. Instead, you had to import it into the website, and use the website to create the new save state, which you could then download into your game of DA:I.
I will be very surprised if ME4 doesn't do the same thing (assuming that it carries over your ME3 save).
Given that ME4 is going to be in a galaxy "far, far away" and the events of ME1-3 are "a long, long time ago", I don't think the save states from the previous games are going to make that much of a difference.
Psienesis wrote: Given that ME4 is going to be in a galaxy "far, far away" and the events of ME1-3 are "a long, long time ago", I don't think the save states from the previous games are going to make that much of a difference.
Yeah, it's gonna be so long ago that most of the choices we made in the previous games are now just footnotes in history holograms
Depends what they rate as a really long time.. 500yrs regarding humanity is a really long time, long enough for huge changes in technology.. but Liara would still be a middle aged Asari.
If its thousands of years then aye I can see the issue.. but the weapon tech doesn't seem to have changed much for that much of a time skip.
As to EDI, I'm pretty sure it was already mentioned they would have a static choice of what happened to the universe.. obviously it means some folks are not going to have their choices match up.. but that was the main issue with the ending,, almost too drastic a final solution to the story.. left them no wiggle room.
For a lot folks its going to be further salt on the wounds, but I didn't mind the ME3 endings, and have already covered two of them with different Shepards.. so I am good no matter what Bioware decides.
On a side note, just replaying ME3 again at the mo.. and finally got around to downloading the Citadel and Omega packs.. Citadel was a lot of fun and Omega has been so far, but damn, that Lancer from Citadel is OP, as is the pistol, but the auto reload by the lancer is just nasty.. nothing has troubled me since I got it.. nothing.
All the ME games I liked and yes the monkeying around with the endings in the last one was rather surreal.
Ends happen, for better or worse so I just live with it, I was entertained through them all.
So looking like a desert world thing? Cowboy genre / Firefly / Dune? Sure, why not? I like all of them.
Should I fire up "Steam Powered Giraffe" as the soundtrack?
Spoiler:
They may have a tie-in or perform some limited reboot for ME.
Little point in getting upset over something that is mostly done and frankly I hate previews "spoiling" the experience of a movie or a game.
On the hardware front, I am quite pleased that consoles have slowed down the insane pace PC's were made to progress due to lazy programmers not wanting limitations placed on them to optimize their code. X-box and PlayStation setting the standard for hardware targets I cannot thank enough.
The 5 year cycle is almost civilized.
Quite a while back I upgraded my processor to the max the motherboard could handle: 6 core AMD so it is banging away OK for now but the next level up will hurt for me.
Literally, my computer decided to have some pins break in one memory slot and would fry anything put in it, 2 expensive memory modules to the computer gods upgrade.
I got rather attached to different characters, I think this is what they do well, it would be nice to see an old one but I am excited to see anything new they come up with.
Though, I NEED to see another character like "HK-47" from KOTOR, Grunt was close but not long on talk.
Morathi's Darkest Sin wrote: On a side note, just replaying ME3 again at the mo.. and finally got around to downloading the Citadel and Omega packs.. Citadel was a lot of fun and Omega has been so far, but damn, that Lancer from Citadel is OP, as is the pistol, but the auto reload by the lancer is just nasty.. nothing has troubled me since I got it.. nothing.
Citadel is an awesome piece of DLC. Perfect blend of tongue in cheek send up of the series and awesome action sequences. Wrex's hilarious lines ("Why shoot something once when you can shoot it 46 more times?"), Trainors toothbrush, finding out what almost happened to your Miniature Giant Space Hamster and fish...
And yeah, the Lancer is really, really good, especially with an extra ammo mod and when you master the art of never quite emptying the clip.
Ah multiplayer.. not done that in ages.. think I might give it another go soon.. if its still got plenty of folks active.. have a much better connection now.
Mainly pondering it, as I am debating if I should try and raise my map.. all 50% at the mo, but readiness rating is just over eight thousand, and I'm only at the Sanctuary mission.. so pretty sure I'll get the best rating.
Hmm, thinking on it I might still have the 100% map achieve to unlock.
ME3 was handled so poorly that the universe is just ruined for me.
That they just lamely cut and pasted the ending from the original Deus Ex, and then so stubbornly defended it, with massive gaping plotholes and narrative inconsistencies extending even into the EC (with extremely passive aggressive "buck the starchild" option), I just can't bring myself to really care anymore.
I loved the ME series up until the last ~10 minutes of 3, and just can't get back into it.
Vaktathi wrote: I just cannot get excited about a new ME game.
ME3 was handled so poorly that the universe is just ruined for me.
That they just lamely cut and pasted the ending from the original Deus Ex, and then so stubbornly defended it, with massive gaping plotholes and narrative inconsistencies extending even into the EC (with extremely passive aggressive "buck the starchild" option), I just can't bring myself to really care anymore.
I loved the ME series up until the last ~10 minutes of 3, and just can't get back into it.
Sounds like you just can't appreciate true artistic vision.
Vaktathi wrote: I just cannot get excited about a new ME game.
ME3 was handled so poorly that the universe is just ruined for me.
That they just lamely cut and pasted the ending from the original Deus Ex, and then so stubbornly defended it, with massive gaping plotholes and narrative inconsistencies extending even into the EC (with extremely passive aggressive "buck the starchild" option), I just can't bring myself to really care anymore.
I loved the ME series up until the last ~10 minutes of 3, and just can't get back into it.
Sounds like you just can't appreciate true artistic vision.
Asherian Command wrote: I am causally Optimistic but I did say this about the MAss Effect 3 ending
" I loved the ending. I loved finally being told! HA Its a game. I love disempowering games. I love being an absolute jerk to the player."
The problem was twofold, it was diametrically opposed to the narrative of the rest of the 3 games and DLC, and, somwhat more pointedly, the ending was simply copy-pasted in exacting detail from the original Deus Ex.
Deus Ex, coming out twelve years before ME3, gave you a "three door" ending, run and pick a corridor, one for Control AI, another for Destroy AI, and the last for Merge with AI, with the same Red/Blue/Green color coding. ME3's ending was literally just a straight re-skin of Deus Ex's ending, and not even a very good one at that.
I personally would have been much happier without any choices at the end. Defeat the illusive man, stumble half dead owards the button, as you move there are footsteps behind you. Collapse before you're able to press the button. Footsteps near you, reveal its your squaddies. They help you up, move forward, if Love Interest is there, they press The Button with you. Cue explosions and final (extended) cutscene as Destroy without the AI death thing (Unless that's a sequel plot point).
For bonus points do a 2 weeks later that's the inverse of the opening to the first game with Shepard touring the ship ready for a new adventure.
Like I've always said. Mass Effect isn't grimdark. It may be grim at times, it may be dark at others, but its never OTT grimdark 40k style. Dragon Age, on the other hand, is a completely different kettle of fish.
EDIT: not sure if you're agreeing or disagreeing with me
There was a lot wrong with that ending's from a narrative perspective. The entire premise of this vast, unknowable, unimaginably intelligent and powerful alien force seeking to kill everything was a pitfall of bad circular logic, who's premise you could demonstrably proved was remarkably poorly researched and demonstrably incorrect through Shepard's interactions in ME2 and ME3 long before you ever get to the ending (and thus destroys the narrative character menace of the Reapers, they just end up looking stupid). On top of it, this reasoning is explained by a hamfisted in character in the form of the starchild, who has no connection to anything else in the story and only shows up in the last 5 minutes but supposedly has been there the whole time, and then gives you a literal straight copy of another games ending, but presented in a manner where you're then forced to choose to do it "their way" (where the rest of the game was always about doing it "your" way) and the story threads end up looking like this, disconnecting the ending from the rest of the game's narrative.
I don't need to provide a reasons as long as you're making a bunch of vague, baseless assertions. Provide an actual argument next time.
Vaktathi wrote: The entire premise of this vast, unknowable, unimaginably intelligent and powerful alien force seeking to kill everything was a pitfall of bad circular logic, who's premise you could demonstrably proved was remarkably poorly researched and demonstrably incorrect through Shepard's interactions in ME2 and ME3 long before you ever get to the ending
For someone asking if I have an argument for what I said, you're not actually providing any evidence of your own. Shepard's actions from ME1 to ME3 are the reason why the AI has become confused. It is outside the bounds of its programming, explicitly because of Shepard. However, while there are three exceptional people that make it in the end, only Shepard, the AI reasons, has experienced the right events that make her worthy of being the one to provide user input to change the AI's direction.
Vaktathi wrote: (and thus destroys the narrative character menace of the Reapers, they just end up looking stupid)
Nope. It reminds me of old science fiction novels and movies where the protagonist has to provide an out of control AI with a reason to stop what it's doing. That's a perfectly valid and useful narrative.
Vaktathi wrote: On top of it, this reasoning is explained by a hamfisted in character in the form of the starchild, who has no connection to anything else in the story
So you didn't actually play Mass Effect 3, then, because you CAN'T play ME3 without having seen the connections. You can't skip the dream events, you can't skip the intro event.
It's patently obvious that "the starchild" is just an image pulled from Shepard's mind, used by the AI to make contact with her.
Vaktathi wrote: and only shows up in the last 5 minutes but supposedly has been there the whole time
The reapers are hinted at from Mass Effect 1. The idea of an AI going out of control and dominating biological life is a very common theme within science fiction.
Vaktathi wrote: and then gives you a literal straight copy of another games ending
Vaktathi wrote: The entire premise of this vast, unknowable, unimaginably intelligent and powerful alien force seeking to kill everything was a pitfall of bad circular logic, who's premise you could demonstrably proved was remarkably poorly researched and demonstrably incorrect through Shepard's interactions in ME2 and ME3 long before you ever get to the ending
For someone asking if I have an argument for what I said, you're not actually providing any evidence of your own. Shepard's actions from ME1 to ME3 are the reason why the AI has become confused. It is outside the bounds of its programming, explicitly because of Shepard. However, while there are three exceptional people that make it in the end, only Shepard, the AI reasons, has experienced the right events that make her worthy of being the one to provide user input to change the AI's direction.
Which is absurd because it's not a system designed to have a user, it's its own user, and has clearly been able to adapt and change its programming, the very fact that it would recognize this fact is proof.
But, ultimately, more to the point, the ending really doesn't change based on your actions, whether you prove or disprove its fundamental premise, if all you do is run through, act like a jerkwad, kill everything, and whatnot, you're still given the same choices. It's "effect" was fundamentally disconnected from the "cause" of the previous sequences.
Vaktathi wrote: (and thus destroys the narrative character menace of the Reapers, they just end up looking stupid)
Nope. It reminds me of old science fiction novels and movies where the protagonist has to provide an out of control AI with a reason to stop what it's doing. That's a perfectly valid and useful narrative.
Relatively stupid AI's, basic cartoon-circular logic errors where you see their head explode for giggles. The far less advanced Geth certainly did not have this issue.
Vaktathi wrote: On top of it, this reasoning is explained by a hamfisted in character in the form of the starchild, who has no connection to anything else in the story
So you didn't actually play Mass Effect 3, then, because you CAN'T play ME3 without having seen the connections. You can't skip the dream events, you can't skip the intro event.
Yes there's the intro event, it does not portent anything like the ending, and the dream sequences likewise felt awkwardly hamfisted, they really just felt immersion breaking an ill-fitting throughout the entire game. But the character itself, as a narrative device, largely has no relevance to the greater story as a whole and only makes their appearance in the last few minutes, with only the very awkward dream sequences (that felt extremely out of character given the previous Mass Effect games) to have *any* interaction with the rest of the story.
Vaktathi wrote: and only shows up in the last 5 minutes but supposedly has been there the whole time
The reapers are hinted at from Mass Effect 1. The idea of an AI going out of control and dominating biological life is a very common theme within science fiction.
Yes, but dominating and obliterating biological life so that it doesn't create artificial life that obliterates biological life is the rather absurd part.
Vaktathi wrote: and then gives you a literal straight copy of another games ending
Stop worshiping Deus Ex, it wasn't THAT great.
I'm not worshipping Deus Ex, I'm pointing out that ME3's ending is simply a point for point copy of Deux Ex's ending. Three doors, three colors, red/blue/green, control AI/destroy AI/merge with AI. That's literally the same scene.
Again, it's not that I'm all hot and bothered over Deus Ex (which was still in it's own right a great game, just as ME1 and ME2 were), if they yoinked it from Call of Duty or Command & Conquer or Warcraft or whatever, it would still be irritating. The problem was that ME3's end scene was wholesale copied, same concepts, same execution, same methods, same color-coding, with the same ultimate outcomes (destroy AI and you destroy civilization, control AI and you control civilization, merge with AI and new paradigm is created).
It was delivered the exact same "pick one of three doors" way, with the same three choices, the same three concepts, the same three outcomes, and even the same three colors That's where the issue with Deus Ex comes in. And Deus Ex just did a much better job of building up to that particular scenario, in Mass Effect it comes largely out of nowhere and with a gajillion plotholes (some of which the EC tried to address...sort of). I'm far from the only person that felt that way. Bioware badly copied another game's ending and then got poorly defended is as their "artistic vision" when it blew up in their face.
There's taking inspiration from something and adapting it to a different narrative, and then there's copying something directly and hamfisting it into a narrative where it hasn't adequately been built up to.
Vaktathi wrote: Which is absurd because it's not a system designed to have a user,
Apparently, it is. Just one that doesn't HAVE to have one.
Vaktathi wrote: the ending really doesn't change based on your actions
The ending does change based on your actions. Just not in the way you want it to. But I don't think the way you want it to change would make for a good story.
Vaktathi wrote: The far less advanced Geth certainly did not have this issue.
Geth Heretics.
Q.E.D.
An AI doesn't have to be "stupid" to go through this. It simply has to be complex. A very complex AI with two or more competing but equally high priority objectives will act in ways that seem irrational and inconsistent.
Vaktathi wrote: Yes there's the intro event, it does not portent anything like the ending
So what?
It doesn't have to. You're acting like the kid who died is the same thing that appeared before Shepard in the end.
This is a ridiculous assumption for an equally ridiculous argument.
Shepard was deeply impacted by seeing the child die like that. The death was a symbol, to Shepard, of all the lives lost. A symbol of her failures. It dominated her dreams and came up in her thoughts often.
This strong mental image was used as the AI's avatar.
Vaktathi wrote: Yes, but dominating and obliterating biological life so that it doesn't create artificial life that obliterates biological life is the rather absurd part.
The reapers claim that they are "preserving" biological life. Didn't you actually play the damn game?
Vaktathi wrote: I'm not worshipping Deus Ex, I'm pointing out that ME3's ending is simply a point for point copy of Deux Ex's ending. Three doors, three colors, red/blue/green, control AI/destroy AI/merge with AI. That's literally the same scene.
Vaktathi wrote: Which is absurd because it's not a system designed to have a user,
Apparently, it is. Just one that doesn't HAVE to have one.
Which is a rather ridiculous premise for an unimaginably powerful fleet of god machines that only comes up in the last 5 minutes of a ~120+ hour trilogy between three games and multiple DLC.
Vaktathi wrote: the ending really doesn't change based on your actions
The ending does change based on your actions. Just not in the way you want it to. But I don't think the way you want it to change would make for a good story.
And what exactly is it that you think I want? Because I don't think that, aside from what you're projecting onto me, I've really gotten into much how I would have done it.
I don't think my position that the ending was poorly handled was exactly a unique one either, I've never seen a game developer have to go back and put out two or three DLC's to fix their botched ending. I honestly cannot think of another game that had to go back and do something like that. I can't think of any other game that had the blowback ME3 had in regards to a story.
Vaktathi wrote: The far less advanced Geth certainly did not have this issue.
Geth Heretics.
Q.E.D.
An AI doesn't have to be "stupid" to go through this. It simply has to be complex. A very complex AI with two or more competing but equally high priority objectives will act in ways that seem irrational and inconsistent.
The Geth Heretics were not pursuing the same goal as the Reapers, they were, if anything, exactly what the Reapers were supposed to protect against...and this is the sort of logic sequence a 6th grader can be easily guided through, having god-like AI machines ruling the galaxy suffer from this kind of thing comes off as almost slapstick.
Vaktathi wrote: Yes there's the intro event, it does not portent anything like the ending
So what?
It doesn't have to. You're acting like the kid who died is the same thing that appeared before Shepard in the end.
This is a ridiculous assumption for an equally ridiculous argument.
Shepard was deeply impacted by seeing the child die like that. The death was a symbol, to Shepard, of all the lives lost. A symbol of her failures. It dominated her dreams and came up in her thoughts often.
This strong mental image was used as the AI's avatar.
Shepard had already seen countless people die, often just as tragically and often much closer to her, never had any sort of episode like that before. The idea that this single child is what the Starchild should assume the form of was rather forced. Why not Kaiiden/Ash or any of the others that the player might actually develop emotional attachment to?
It was apparent that many people did not find the dream sequences to be fluid parts of the story when half the players (particularly before the EC) assumed it was part of some sort of Indoctrination process. The dream sequences were one of the most awkward story parts of ME3, particularly relative to ME1 and ME2.
Vaktathi wrote: Yes, but dominating and obliterating biological life so that it doesn't create artificial life that obliterates biological life is the rather absurd part.
The reapers claim that they are "preserving" biological life. Didn't you actually play the damn game?
Yes, I played it. Can we drop that already?
The idea that the Synthetic Reapers have to kill Organics to prevent them from creating Synthetics that will kill Organics is still absolutely absurd logic (particularly when they're willing to use hostile anti-organic Synthetic Geth to destroy those Organics). There's a gargantuan number of problems with that line of thinking that simply do not match with the Reaper's intelligence. They clearly have the power to do more than simply destroy., They have control of interstellar communications and travel. They can outgun anything and everything. There are a near infinite array of alternatives that would be less slowed than the method that was chosen. Most fundamentally...why couldn't they just come in and destroy hostile synthetics...?
Vaktathi wrote: I'm not worshipping Deus Ex, I'm pointing out that ME3's ending is simply a point for point copy of Deux Ex's ending. Three doors, three colors, red/blue/green, control AI/destroy AI/merge with AI. That's literally the same scene.
Superficial similarities at best.
They are literally the exact. same. scene.
You are given three doors. They each have the same concepts, destroy AI and destroy civilization, control AI and control civilization, merge with AI and create a new paradigm, exact same outcomes. They have the same three color codings, red/blue/green.
It's literally only the superficialities that are different.
Vaktathi wrote: that only comes up in the last 5 minutes of a ~120+ hour trilogy between three games and multiple DLC.
I saw hints of it in the first game.
You can probably be safely assured they're not there, considering the head writer for the first (and co-writer of the second), Drew Karpyshyn, is on record as having stated that he intended for a different ending with a different fundamental reasoning behind the Reapers existence and motives, and that it never got fully fleshed out and hammered down by the time he left Bioware right about the time ME2 came out, with ME3 going in a different direction under a different manager.
Vaktathi wrote: I just cannot get excited about a new ME game.
ME3 was handled so poorly that the universe is just ruined for me.
That they just lamely cut and pasted the ending from the original Deus Ex, and then so stubbornly defended it, with massive gaping plotholes and narrative inconsistencies extending even into the EC (with extremely passive aggressive "buck the starchild" option), I just can't bring myself to really care anymore.
I loved the ME series up until the last ~10 minutes of 3, and just can't get back into it.
I loved it until the ending of 2. That boss was just so lame at the end. Mass effect 1 had the coolest ending fighting what appeared to be a normal guy who then awoken as a machine thingy (although I usually paragon out of the fight because words are cool). 2 wasn't as fun gameplay wise but it was awesome story and quest wise. Just that boss ruined it for me and now I can't get through the first 10 minutes of Mass effect 3 which was incredibly lame for me.
I have 100% clocked Mass Effect 1 too. Every inch of every planet and map was needed to do that. One of the very few games I actually did anything in 100% max out. But Mass effect 3 was the final nail in the coffin. Like it I do not.
Vaktathi wrote: I just cannot get excited about a new ME game.
ME3 was handled so poorly that the universe is just ruined for me.
That they just lamely cut and pasted the ending from the original Deus Ex, and then so stubbornly defended it, with massive gaping plotholes and narrative inconsistencies extending even into the EC (with extremely passive aggressive "buck the starchild" option), I just can't bring myself to really care anymore.
I loved the ME series up until the last ~10 minutes of 3, and just can't get back into it.
I loved it until the ending of 2. That boss was just so lame at the end. Mass effect 1 had the coolest ending fighting what appeared to be a normal guy who then awoken as a machine thingy (although I usually paragon out of the fight because words are cool). 2 wasn't as fun gameplay wise but it was awesome story and quest wise. Just that boss ruined it for me and now I can't get through the first 10 minutes of Mass effect 3 which was incredibly lame for me.
I have 100% clocked Mass Effect 1 too. Every inch of every planet and map was needed to do that. One of the very few games I actually did anything in 100% max out. But Mass effect 3 was the final nail in the coffin. Like it I do not.
The end boss of ME2 was pretty absurdly goofy, that's where I think you can start to see the shift in writing/design staff. I found myself able to dismiss it and move on, but yeah, it was certainly really goofy.
The end boss of 2 was goofy, but it also acted as a reveal - i.e. that humans were being used to build a new reaper. iirc, up until that point it wasn't entirely clear just what was being done to the captured humans. Still, they probably could have handled it a bit better.
From what I understand, Drew Karpashian's original idea for the Reapers' motivation has been known for a while now. Technologically advancing societies cause the dark matter problems that were mentioned in ME2 (Tali's recruitment mission, and the undercover investigator from ME1), so the Reapers come in and destroy the existing civilizations and allow the problem to heal itself. But the Reapers found something unique in humanity that promised a permanent solution to the problem so that no further purges would need to take place. The choice at the end of ME3 was supposed to come down to sacrifice humanity to solve the problem permanently, or destroy the Reapers and save humanity in hopes that a solution would present itself before the problem grew too big.
The ME3 writer completely ignored the dark matter plot hooks (afaik, it didn't even get a mention in ME3), and came up with the "orderly AIs will eventually go Skynet on the disorganized organics" idea instead.
.
The more I think about it, I really do like that idea (maybe not that specific choice though... Why sacrifice humanity? I mean, maybe sacrifice Earth because the means to stop it is on the citadel over Earth, but wiping out all humans, err...)
In any case, it does fit more. - It had already been well established in the series that AI had just as much tendency for life and, dare I say it, a soul , as organics. Sure there may be 'bad' AI, but the Geth, and EDI, showed that AI in the universe was much closer to Data, than Skynet...
As I said, I never felt Mass Effect was 'grimdark' - The idea that there is a good chance that certain technological research could destroy the entire galaxy/universe if it wasn't reined in is a good one (There was a BBC newsarticle about that recently that I can't find...).
And if you did have a plotline that, say, the Citadel species were already actively doing Dark Matter research, it fits better.
It also fits in with the concept of Humans are Special a lot more, in my view. Again, a kind of Star Trekky concept.
I've always disliked that whole Dark matter thing. If anything it is more deus ex machina than the current ending.
Sacrificing humanity can suddenly fix a galaxy-wide problem that has persisted over millions of years? And apparently humanity is the first species in how many iterations of evolution to have this specific genetic trait that makes them capable of this?
Vaktathi wrote: You can probably be safely assured they're not there
Or maybe you're just not paying attention enough, and have all these weird preconceptions that blind you to paying attention to the little details.
It's not there because at the point in time that you're discussing the lead writer didn't intend for it to be there. Remember that the lead writer during ME1 and ME2 wasn't writing toward Ghost Boy and "Inevitability of the Skynet scenario". So he couldn't have been dropping vague hints about it.
Vaktathi wrote: You can probably be safely assured they're not there
Or maybe you're just not paying attention enough, and have all these weird preconceptions that blind you to paying attention to the little details.
Or maybe you're just fishing at this point to back up an assertion based on your own projections of something that isn't there by the admission of the game's writing staff because they hadn't come up with any of the concepts used in ME3's ending, and were working with an entirely different concept (built around "Dark Energy") when they made ME1....
If you're seeing hints of the Starchild and ME3's reasoning for the Reapers existence in ME1, it's entirely of your own making, for two reasons. They were working with a different concept at the time, and hadn't gotten so far as to flesh out the endgame yet.
Any hints you should see should be stuff like the Quarrian/Geth mission in ME2 talking about Dark Energy, that's where they were originally going.
The "prothean relic" that was Sovereign had tech that looked nothing like any of the prothean ruins in the rest of the game. Its technology was quite different in both appearance and function, making it obvious that it wasn't prothean at all, and that it was something else. The fact that it was able to mind control Saren and Benezia meant that it was either sentient itself or at the very least a very advanced AI, as it was influencing and directing their actions and reacting to the galaxy at large-- following directives told to us by Sovereign in ME1. In ME2, the existence of more of these things of the same general design made it obvious that it was an entire fleet or race of them with a hidden agenda, and that they wiped out the Protheans brings hints of cyclical purgings or harvestings that confirms what Sovereign said in ME1 and that Sovereign was not alone, to say nothing of the possession of individual "Collectors" (IE Protheans) which was similar to Sovereign's control of Saren evolved to fit a species that had been bred for countless generations to be controlled in this way. This pointed towards a highly advanced AI that harvested biological life forms to form more of itself and preserve what they thought would have been lost when artificial life became a danger. Either each machine was its own god-machine, or there was something directing them, a living being or an AI which made decisions on how they acted as a whole.
... which is what we got, in ME3. What we learned in ME3 was whether or not it was intended to have been that way by its creators (it wasn't), and the details of how it took the people of each cycle and turned them in to monsters, amongst other things. But this "god-machine" itself? Definitely not a new idea in the Mass Effect universe.
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Shadow Captain Edithae wrote: Rewatched the first trailer and, listening to the music track (Ghost Rider - Johnny Cash), it struck me.
The song belongs in Fallout New Vegas, not Mass Effect .
Vaktathi wrote: You can probably be safely assured they're not there
Or maybe you're just not paying attention enough, and have all these weird preconceptions that blind you to paying attention to the little details.
Or maybe you're just fishing at this point
Nope. I played through all three and did not feel a disconnect. It's strange that the fact that I had no problem wiht it offends you so much.
It doesn't.
The fact that you're insisting you're seeing hints of stuff that wasn't there, by the writers own admission, is somewhat amusing though, as is responding only with one-sentence replies without backing anything up.
You're not providing any examples of these "hints" (not even vague ones that could be ascribed to just about anything) though I've given you an explicit example from ME2 that was hinting at a different ending by the writers own admission, you're not backing up any of your points or addressing the fact that the writers of ME1 had absolutely nothing of this in mind.
If you didn't see a great disconnect, fine. Many people did, and the head writer for ME1 and ME2 has said it didn't end the way he was intending it to end. There's a reason that Bioware had to release multiple DLC's to try and fix their ending. You think you saw hints of the ME3 ending in ME1, well, fine, but the head writer would tell you otherwise because they had an entirely different concept in mind and hadn't hammered anything solidly out by the time he left at the end of ME2's production.
If you liked ME3 fine, I'm not hating on that. I liked most of the game. I loved ME1 and ME2. But the ending had major narrative issues and was widely controversial for a reason, and Bioware ultimately had to respond in unprecedented ways to try and fix it, which wouldn't have been necessary had the ending really been all that neatly wrapped up.
If people can't post politely, on either side of the argument, then they will be dealt with. Posts have been edited to reduce the level of rudeness in them, and from this point on you're all being watched.
I don't think people are disagreeing with the concepts of:
1) Reapers were not created by the protheans
2) The destruction of races was cyclical. Hello they're called Reapers, as in reaping, as in farming.
The issue are with the motivation being: "AI needs to kill (almost) everyone to stop AI killing everyone."
Plus the star child also diminishes the Reapers themselves. Both harbinger and sovereign had their own personalities, potentially their own goals. For that to be subsumed under the Star Child is kinda pants.
But if you add in the concept of it being another disaster that isn't 'AI are bad' (which part of the theme of the game were, actually it isn't, the Quarians brought it upon themselves and very well could have just trusted the geth more. - AI is less Skynet, closer to cylons from New BSG), you keep all the themes of "it is the nature of intelligent life to destroy itself (and the galaxy), which was present in the games, but it adds actual nobility to even the Reapers cause when they can turn to people and say.
" no, seriously, eventually someone somewhere will do a Dark Matter experiment, it might not even be government sanctioned but it will happen eventually and it will have a 90% chance of going horribly wrong and taking out the galaxy in a huge ever growing black hole."
Now I don't know how sacrificing humanity to stop that would help, but anyhow ending the game saying "well take that risk and now that we know about it we can start working to prevent it, nobody needs to die anymore" would have worked as an ending in my view.
Compel wrote: The issue are with the motivation being: "AI needs to kill (almost) everyone to stop AI killing everyone."
It was, in its mind, preserving them instead of killing.
Compel wrote: Plus the star child also diminishes the Reapers themselves.
"The starchild", aka The Catalyst, didn't subsume everything. I mean FFS you talked to a different reaper in all three games, it's obvious that they have personalities.
Compel wrote: " no, seriously, eventually someone somewhere will do a Dark Matter experiment, it might not even be government sanctioned but it will happen eventually and it will have a 90% chance of going horribly wrong and taking out the galaxy in a huge ever growing black hole."
Boring. "Science is evil!" isn't my idea of a fun game concept.
This conversation is far too deep and meaningful for me, my issue with ME:3 was a very very simple one.
What was the point in the hundreds of decisions I made, when everybody dies in the end anyway?
Save the geth, they all die anyway. Save the Quarians, they all die anyway. Save the earth, its fethed anyway. Cure the genophage, feth it everyone dies anyway.
It seemed to me to ride roughshod over the illusion of choice I had throughout the series!
The real world is miserable enough as it is, I like my fiction to at least have a solid happy ending. I wanted to feth off and retire with my space spouse in a nice cottage somewhere exotic, not choose between turning the galaxy into mutants or kill absolutely everyone.
mattyrm wrote: This conversation is far too deep and meaningful for me, my issue with ME:3 was a very very simple one.
What was the point in the hundreds of decisions I made, when everybody dies in the end anyway?
Save the geth, they all die anyway. Save the Quarians, they all die anyway. Save the earth, its fethed anyway. Cure the genophage, feth it everyone dies anyway.
It seemed to me to ride roughshod over the illusion of choice I had throughout the series!
The real world is miserable enough as it is, I like my fiction to at least have a solid happy ending. I wanted to feth off and retire with my space spouse in a nice cottage somewhere exotic, not choose between turning the galaxy into mutants or kill absolutely everyone.
Umm, the destroy ending, with enough galactic readiness, only kills the reapers and the geth (and EDI, though she can come out of the Normandy at the end so possibly something protected her).
As for the Citadel, it's unclear how many died or survived on that, but I heard hints that it was evacuated or that some people did survive impact, so IDK. That was my big complaint-- that there wasn't enough in-game information about what happened to the people on the Citadel. On that, I fully agree.
mattyrm wrote: This conversation is far too deep and meaningful for me, my issue with ME:3 was a very very simple one.
What was the point in the hundreds of decisions I made, when everybody dies in the end anyway?
Save the geth, they all die anyway. Save the Quarians, they all die anyway. Save the earth, its fethed anyway. Cure the genophage, feth it everyone dies anyway.
It seemed to me to ride roughshod over the illusion of choice I had throughout the series!
The real world is miserable enough as it is, I like my fiction to at least have a solid happy ending. I wanted to feth off and retire with my space spouse in a nice cottage somewhere exotic, not choose between turning the galaxy into mutants or kill absolutely everyone.
Umm, the destroy ending, with enough galactic readiness, only kills the reapers and the geth (and EDI, though she can come out of the Normandy at the end so possibly something protected her).
I thought any form of space travel was completely ended, anything computerized exploded, and all of the gateways exploded and fethed up all the planets anyway?
Oh yeah and EDI would clearly have been fried as well, I thought that was pretty dumb she was wandering around.
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Melissia wrote: As for the Citadel, it's unclear how many died or survived on that, but I heard hints that it was evacuated or that some people did survive impact, so IDK. That was my big complaint-- that there wasn't enough in-game information about what happened to the people on the Citadel. On that, I fully agree.
Yeah surely that thing would have been blown to smithereens as well?!
It was one of many thoughts I had as I shook my fist with rage at the PC screen.
The Citadel was a massive, ancient, and extremely durable space station, some of it physically survived, half-embedded in the landscape, albeit heavily damaged.
I thought any form of space travel was completely ended, anything computerized exploded, and all of the gateways exploded and fethed up all the planets anyway?
Oh yeah and EDI would clearly have been fried as well, I thought that was pretty dumb she was wandering around.
This is one of the main misunderstandings with the endings that I see a lot of people bring up.
We see the mass relays send out a shock wave after it received the signal from the crucible. This is them releasing their energy in the form of whatever it was you chose (destroy, control, synthesis) in a controlled fashion. Then, after they have released their energy, they self destruct.
Now, a lot of people saw them exploding and assumed that it would be the same as in the ME2 DLC where you crash an asteroid into a mass relay, where the resulting explosion destroys the entire system. In that case, however, it is an uncontrolled release of the immense energy contained within a mass relay.
So, to use a real world analogy, the release of energy from the ME2 relay was an atomic bomb whereas in ME3 it was more akin to a nuclear reactor.
In the game I thought the Crucible makes it clear that it will only kill synthetic "life", not everything synthetic. So, people with implants (such as Shepard) will be fine as they are still organic life, just with some synthetic parts. The Geth, however, became truly alive and so would die. However there's no reason the Quarians couldn't try to make them again.
As for space travel being ended, why assume that they couldn't repair the relays? Which is what is said to be happening in the Extended Cut, though I hate that DLC as it just drags the ending out with unnecessary dialogue and makes the run to the beam a lot less exciting and intense.
I thought any form of space travel was completely ended, anything computerized exploded, and all of the gateways exploded and fethed up all the planets anyway?
Oh yeah and EDI would clearly have been fried as well, I thought that was pretty dumb she was wandering around.
This is one of the main misunderstandings with the endings that I see a lot of people bring up.
We see the mass relays send out a shock wave after it received the signal from the crucible. This is them releasing their energy in the form of whatever it was you chose (destroy, control, synthesis) in a controlled fashion. Then, after they have released their energy, they self destruct.
Now, a lot of people saw them exploding and assumed that it would be the same as in the ME2 DLC where you crash an asteroid into a mass relay, where the resulting explosion destroys the entire system. In that case, however, it is an uncontrolled release of the immense energy contained within a mass relay.
So, to use a real world analogy, the release of energy from the ME2 relay was an atomic bomb whereas in ME3 it was more akin to a nuclear reactor.
This was one of the things they changed (after Bioware insisted they weren't going to change anything) with the EC. In the original ending, the mass relays are shown exploding just like the ME2 DLC. With the EC, they changed the animation of the explosions to just be the "rings" of the Mass Relays.
As for space travel being ended, why assume that they couldn't repair the relays?
The remaining galactic civilizations didn't build them, they couldn't build them on their own, they simply utilized an existing infrastructure, rebuilding that network was beyond the capabilities of the existing galactic civilizations, at least for the foreseeable future.
Which is what is said to be happening in the Extended Cut, though I hate that DLC as it just drags the ending out with unnecessary dialogue and makes the run to the beam a lot less exciting and intense.
That was how they had to hamfist answers to a number of plotholes that the original ending otherwise didn't explain, and that Bioware was adamant they didn't want to change
Vaktathi wrote: This was one of the things they changed (after Bioware insisted they weren't going to change anything) with the EC. In the original ending, the mass relays are shown exploding just like the ME2 DLC. With the EC, they changed the animation of the explosions to just be the "rings" of the Mass Relays.
Actually, it isn't. The relay was destroyed but only after the "shock wave" was released. The shock waves seen were the release of the crucible energy, not the exploding mass relay.
Observe how the shock waves look exactly the same as the one which comes out of the crucible, which is seen to not harm the humans on earth.
Vaktathi wrote: This was one of the things they changed (after Bioware insisted they weren't going to change anything) with the EC. In the original ending, the mass relays are shown exploding just like the ME2 DLC. With the EC, they changed the animation of the explosions to just be the "rings" of the Mass Relays.
Actually, it isn't. The relay was destroyed but only after the "shock wave" was released. The shock waves seen were the release of the crucible energy, not the exploding mass relay.
Observe how the shock waves look exactly the same as the one which comes out of the crucible, which is seen to not harm the humans on earth.
The original ending's relay explosion however looks very similar to that of the ME2 relay explosion.
Bioware very much definitely did change the explosion animation between the original ending and the "Extended Cut" DLC, precisely because it looked nearly identical to the ME2 relay explosion, just with a different color. In ME2 and the original ME3 ending, the relays are similarly broken up and explosive, while in the ME3 EC DLC, the level of destruction to the relay, and the "blast" is far less substantial and pyrotechnic.
Was able to complete it yesterday, got the best ending with readiness at 50% on the map.. just had such a high military strength the missions were not necessary.
Still plan on having another go for the 100% map achievement, but trying ME1 on the Xbox One at the mo as I got into the preview program.
...And I be like "Well I see hints of the Indoctrination Theory. Shepard is clearly indoctrinated".
For one: Except unlike indoctrination theory, my suggestion actually makes sense without ass-pulls, and fits in with the canon as developed as per the latest game. And two: I never stated that the Catalyst hologram itself was in the first game. Only that there were hints that Sovereign wasn't alone. Then when ME2 came about, this ended up being true-- which brings thoughts of... who leads those that we now refer to as Reapers?
I feel like you people using the term "starchild" is making you unable to actually think about what the Catalyst hologram actually is. Said hologram is nothing more than a physical representation of something Shepard has been thinking about a lot, something which impacted her greatly, so that the Catalyst AI may communicate with her. It boggles the mind that this is so confusing to so many people. Hell, this trope is so common it was used several times in Star Trek alone, to say nothing of other science-fiction shows or books.
That said, the idea that there's a centralized AI that directs this fleet of god-ships is not something radical and sudden that's forced upon the game at the last minute. Once we realize there's more than one (which was all but confirmed in Me1), it is only natural to think that SOMETHING is directing the Reapers, given their coordinated actions. Whether or not that thing is a sentient race who created them, one single god-like creature, a sort of Reaper Consensus similar to the Geth, or a centralized AI, something needs to be there in order to coordinate them.
This isn't some strange and radical idea which requires twisting and turning of the facts presented to us by the game, it's just a natural progression of understanding that occurs throughout the series. We learn the existence of Reapers in the first game; we learn more details and that there's more than one of them in the second; in the third, we fight them however we can, and in the ending of the third, their leader leader (an AI constructed by an arrogant race that turned on them in order to fulfill the exact wording of its complex programmed directives-- a common sci-fi trope, but one which can be well done, as it was here) is confronted and overcome.
...And I be like "Well I see hints of the Indoctrination Theory. Shepard is clearly indoctrinated".
For one: Except unlike indoctrination theory, my suggestion actually makes sense without ass-pulls,
Only if you project things from ME3 back onto earlier games that the writers of the game have openly declared was not anything they were intending at the time the earlier games were written and developed. Rationalization within-universe after the fact is ok, but it must be acknowledged that that's what it is, when they made ME1 they had zero idea of how they were going to end the series and the clues they intentionally drop in ME2 were working towards a different ending (centered around "Dark Energy") than what was eventually developed for ME3. By the same rationalization, the Indoctrination theory is not all that much further off.
Sure, the Prothean artifact doesn't look like any other Prothean stuff, but almost nothing Prothean from ME1 looks like anything Prothean from ME3 either, and the artifact certainly doesn't look like other Reaper tech you see either (and really, is an homage to the book/movie Sphere more than anything else). There was a shift in visual design and a very clear indication of a very late stage change in the development & writing process of the series with regards to ME3.
a common sci-fi trope, but one which can be well done, as it was here)
The fact that Bioware had to amend it's ending with multiple DLC's, and that there was more outrage over the last 10 minutes of ME3 than over any other videogame I've ever seen, is probably an indication that it was not so well done. If it were well done, these things would have been unnecessary.
Morathi's Darkest Sin wrote: Was able to complete it yesterday, got the best ending with readiness at 50% on the map.. just had such a high military strength the missions were not necessary.
Still plan on having another go for the 100% map achievement, but trying ME1 on the Xbox One at the mo as I got into the preview program.
Ugh ME1 man those bring back memories and reminds me how old I am now.
Morathi's Darkest Sin wrote: Was able to complete it yesterday, got the best ending with readiness at 50% on the map.. just had such a high military strength the missions were not necessary.
Still plan on having another go for the 100% map achievement, but trying ME1 on the Xbox One at the mo as I got into the preview program.
Ugh ME1 man those bring back memories and reminds me how old I am now.
It only came out in 2007
I remember it was an impulse buy for me. Was queuing with my brother in a games store it on a shelf. He said it got good reviews so I bought it
Vaktathi wrote: Only if you project things from ME3 back onto earlier games
So you don't like mystery stories then?
A lot of things in mystery books only make sense later on in the story. But putting the pieces together from across the beginning, middle, and end of the story, they make sense in the end, when you confront the finale.
The fact that [...] there was more outrage over the last 10 minutes of ME3 than over any other videogame I've ever seen, is
Proof that the internet is full of irrational whiners?
But then again I only need to look on the comments section of any news article that has a comments section to see that much.
Morathi's Darkest Sin wrote: Was able to complete it yesterday, got the best ending with readiness at 50% on the map.. just had such a high military strength the missions were not necessary.
Still plan on having another go for the 100% map achievement, but trying ME1 on the Xbox One at the mo as I got into the preview program.
Ugh ME1 man those bring back memories and reminds me how old I am now.
It only came out in 2007
I remember it was an impulse buy for me. Was queuing with my brother in a games store it on a shelf. He said it got good reviews so I bought it
Thats 8 years ago.
I am in college studying video game design and designing video games. Thats a long time for video games. That was before the brown era of graphics. (or was it during err not really sure)
Vaktathi wrote: Only if you project things from ME3 back onto earlier games
So you don't like mystery stories then?
A lot of things in mystery books only make sense later on in the story. But putting the pieces together, they make sense in the end, when you confront the finale.
Sure, but typically you're not having to string an ending to an earlier narrative that the author openly admits was not intended to lead to that ending. The ME3 ending really functions largely independently of the rest of the trilogy's story line, and no matter what your actions, pretty much the only thing that changes about the endings is what options you get access to, which is largely simply dependent on how much content you got through in ME3 as opposed to the actual decisions and choices you made throughout ME3 and its predecessors.
The fact that [...] there was more outrage over the last 10 minutes of ME3 than over any other videogame I've ever seen, is
Proof that the internet is full of irrational whiners?
But then again I only need to look on the comments section of any news article that has a comments section to see that much.
One can always avoid the substantive issue by hand-waving it away and painting it as something mundane.
Point is, that sort of a reaction was unique. Yes, there are always complainers. Companies however do not typically respond to it, They certainly don't typically do so by coming out within weeks or release with a new, unplanned DLC to address the issue, and then tack more on later for simple mundane complaining. The scale and size of the issue was singularly unique and absolutely indicative of a major problem. If it were not, there would not have been several add-ons to the game addressing it, and having to change aspects (such as the Mass Relay Gate explosions and the run to the Beam up to the Citadel).
Then that's an entirely different argument, and, going back to my earlier statements, at that point one has to accept that any "hints" you're seeing in earlier games of ME3's ultimate ending scenario are largely your own projection to retroactively force the narrative to function, rather than an intended narrative construct that supported the narrative all the way through.
Do you have anything else to add that isn't based off of this irrelevancy?
So, you're just going to hand-wave anything you don't want to talk about as an irrelevancy?
Ok, lets go back to the direct narrative once again. The fact that the ending plays out with largely no regards to your previous choices or decisions (and is pretty much entirely simply based on volume of content completion of the last leg of the trilogy) is extremely disconnecting, particularly in that they only affect the different buttons you get to push. The game's ultimate ending is entirely disconnected from the narrative of the rest of the game, and your option to control the reapers or synthesize a new paradigm is dependent on...how big a fleet you bring to earth? And that this is largely determined simply by a certain level of ME3 content completion and has nothing to do with *how* you accomplish any of that? That's an issue.
You can fundamentally disprove the Reapers logic by negotiating peace between the Geth and the Quarrians or not but the ending doesn't change You can doom the Krogan to slow death or not, doesn't change how the end plays out. You can save the Rachni or not, doesn't change how the game ends. Your encounter with the Illusive Man has no effect on how the game ends. The survival and makeup of the Galactic Council is utterly irrelevant to the game's outcome. Bringing the Batarians back into the fold changes nothing. The fate of the Shadow Broker changes nothing. At best these things simply change the War Assets number slightly, and the *only* thing that changes is the buttons that you are allowed to push.
The platform scene is completely independent of the rest of trilogy beyond what doors you get the choice to open, and even that can be accomplished without anything from ME1 or ME2 playing into that and only completing certain parts of ME3, the choices and decisions being largely irrelevant. (in a game where the overriding narrative had always ostensibly relied heavily on player decisions).
This is of course also ignoring the awkwardness of the hamfisted in "readiness rating" dependent on playing multiplayer...
Lets put it in another perspective.
What made this ending work in Deus Ex was that your choice was the answer to a fundamental question that was continually asked throughout the entire story "How should society be governed?/how should civilization operate?" Through control of all-encompassing AI in the hands of a privileged secret cabal? by the people operating at local cooperative levels without AI or Cabals? Through a new paradigm with a new human/AI hybrid God?
Throughout the Mass Effect series, your goal is the stop the Reapers from obliterating and killing all existing sentient life in the galaxy, largely through military means. Even setting aside the absurdity of the circular logic their premise is built on, you aren't presented with the parallel of the above question as the central focus of the story until the very end of the last game, at which point the narrative shifts on a dime from "stop the reapers militarily" to "answer a god-like AI's philosophical quandary".
The idea of "Organics vs Synthetics" was not the core overriding narrative theme through the game, in fact, you spend a whole lot more time fighting organics than you do synthetics, and the synthetic threat comes almost exclusively as a result of the Reapers actions (including the Heretic Geth who otherwise were content to sit off not bothering anyone).
Thus, in Deus Ex you answer a question fundamental throughout the whole narrative, in ME3 the narrative snap-focuses to a narrow tangent line in the last 10 minutes, a tangent that was almost entirely a self-referencing problem with the opposing entity in the first place, and that you could fundamentally prove an unnecessary question by the the players actions, long before the question is ever directly put them (but doing so has no real effect either).
Ultimately, we started the discussion on why the ME3 ending was narratively disconnected from the rest of the ME trilogy story through direct parallels to the exact same scene in another game, direct hints to a different ending dropped in ME2 about a different ending, statements from the writer of the first two ME games that they were going towards a different ending originally, and the fact that nothing about the ultimate ending is dependent on any of the decisions made throughout the rest of the narrative only a certain level of content completion to unlock different buttons. There's a lot there to cause people to feel like the ME3 ending was inappropriate and disconnected relative to the rest of the trilogy's narrative and that there are reason for that feeling beyond just "well you're just complaining".
Do you have anything else to add that isn't based off of this irrelevancy?
I don't see how the authors explicitly stated intentions are irrelevant.
Do you have any counter arguments that aren't based on ignoring facts? You've lost the arguments, so now you're pretending you never cared in the first place.
A Town Called Malus wrote: I've always disliked that whole Dark matter thing. If anything it is more deus ex machina than the current ending.
Sacrificing humanity can suddenly fix a galaxy-wide problem that has persisted over millions of years? And apparently humanity is the first species in how many iterations of evolution to have this specific genetic trait that makes them capable of this?
It's pretty bad writing.
I'm not entirely sure how it would have been justified, but "Humanity is special" was one of the sub-themes of ME2. Mordin brings it up on more than one occasion, iirc (starting waaaay back when you first meet him, and discuss the plague with him). And I think it's mentioned by a few other people (who don't lead terrorist movements).
Presumably letting the Reapers go ahead would have involved the "reaperification" of the entire population of Earth at minimum. Shepard's team notes in ME2 that the Collectors have enough storage space set up to kidnap the entire population of Earth. I don't know if it's ever been mentioned whether humanity had been around long enough to have any other worlds with populations anywhere near the size of Earth's.
A Town Called Malus wrote: I've always disliked that whole Dark matter thing. If anything it is more deus ex machina than the current ending.
Sacrificing humanity can suddenly fix a galaxy-wide problem that has persisted over millions of years? And apparently humanity is the first species in how many iterations of evolution to have this specific genetic trait that makes them capable of this?
It's pretty bad writing.
I'm not entirely sure how it would have been justified, but "Humanity is special" was one of the sub-themes of ME2. Mordin brings it up on more than one occasion, iirc (starting waaaay back when you first meet him, and discuss the plague with him). And I think it's mentioned by a few other people (who don't lead terrorist movements).
Presumably letting the Reapers go ahead would have involved the "reaperification" of the entire population of Earth at minimum. Shepard's team notes in ME2 that the Collectors have enough storage space set up to kidnap the entire population of Earth. I don't know if it's ever been mentioned whether humanity had been around long enough to have any other worlds with populations anywhere near the size of Earth's.
But hardly that special. We just have a bit more genetic diversity than the other races. Going from making an effective test group to suddenly having the key to saving the whole galaxy within our DNA is a bit of a stretch.
Throughout the series the thing that was brought up the most as what makes humanity so strong and dangerous is our determination and ambition.
The final produced work, after the revisions and additions, speaks for itself-- regardless of authorial intent.
Or to put it another way:
J.R.R. Tolkien wrote:I cordially dislike allegory in all its manifestations, and always have done so since I grew old and wary enough to detect its presence. I much prefer history, true or feigned, with its varied applicability to the thought and experience of readers. I think that many confuse 'applicability' with 'allegory'; but the one resides in the freedom of the reader, and the other in the purposed domination of the author.
Intent is not a sacred cow to be worshiped. Many things happen regardless of intent. Else, you'd not be here complaining about the ending, because they obviously didn't intend to write an ending you'd have cause to complain about.
You do realise that there is more than one writer involved right? ME3 had a different writer to the original two games. The original writer had a different ending in mind to what his replacement shoehorned into the final game. It's the original writer we're talking about.
Melissia wrote: As for the Citadel, it's unclear how many died or survived on that, but I heard hints that it was evacuated or that some people did survive impact, so IDK. That was my big complaint-- that there wasn't enough in-game information about what happened to the people on the Citadel. On that, I fully agree.
Anyone remember how in Mass Effect 1, if a Reaper took control of the Citadel, they would immediately shut down the relay system? And how the whole final stage was desperately racing to stop Sovereign from doing that?
Anyone?
But that does sum up the biggest reason the ending fails for me--it suddenly stops being about individual characters. Throughout the three ME games, you were dealing with big galaxy-shaking events through the lens of relatable characters and their stories. Mordin, Wrex and Eve told the story of the krogan, Tali and Legion told the story of the geth and quarians. Even the Reapers themselves are introduced and made hateful through their corruption and eventual enslavement of Saren. And so on. But very suddenly, they get forgotten (when i first played the vanilla ending, I wasn't paying attention to the Citadel being a mess because I was more worried about if my squadmates had survived), and everything gets swept off the table. Even Shepard him / herself barely matters, and is only relevant because they happened to catch the attention of the most evil and hateful mass murderer in the history of everything (who we're expected to listen to sympathetically because reasons).
It's like....if I was watching the original Star Wars trilogy when they first came out, and at the end of RotJ, when Luke walks into the Emperor's throne room, we get the ending of 2001: A Space Odyssey. The ending of 2001 is good, but it's not a good ending to all movies.
Sovereign wasn't going to shut down the relay system, he was going to activate the hidden mass relay in the citadel, allowing the other reapers to jump straight into the galaxy at the very heart of governance.
Vaktathi wrote: one has to accept that any "hints" you're seeing in earlier games of ME3's ultimate ending scenario are largely your own projection
No I don't.
By definition, you do. You are reading things into a narrative, retroactively, that were never intended by the original author, based on a sequel written by a different author.,
ME3 was written using the facts of ME1 and ME2. There's no "projection" at all.
Yes, written by a different team, with nothing resembling the ME3 ending in mind. The actual explicit hints to an ending you get in earlier games are not the one's you're picking up on.
I'm not budging on that statement.
Ok, well, care to address any of the other points I stated, or are you just going to re-state how much you don't care about this one and ignore every other argument I've made?
Melissia wrote: As for the Citadel, it's unclear how many died or survived on that, but I heard hints that it was evacuated or that some people did survive impact, so IDK. That was my big complaint-- that there wasn't enough in-game information about what happened to the people on the Citadel. On that, I fully agree.
Anyone remember how in Mass Effect 1, if a Reaper took control of the Citadel, they would immediately shut down the relay system? And how the whole final stage was desperately racing to stop Sovereign from doing that?
Anyone?
But that does sum up the biggest reason the ending fails for me--it suddenly stops being about individual characters. Throughout the three ME games, you were dealing with big galaxy-shaking events through the lens of relatable characters and their stories. Mordin, Wrex and Eve told the story of the krogan, Tali and Legion told the story of the geth and quarians. Even the Reapers themselves are introduced and made hateful through their corruption and eventual enslavement of Saren. And so on. But very suddenly, they get forgotten (when i first played the vanilla ending, I wasn't paying attention to the Citadel being a mess because I was more worried about if my squadmates had survived), and everything gets swept off the table. Even Shepard him / herself barely matters, and is only relevant because they happened to catch the attention of the most evil and hateful mass murderer in the history of everything (who we're expected to listen to sympathetically because reasons).
It's like....if I was watching the original Star Wars trilogy when they first came out, and at the end of RotJ, when Luke walks into the Emperor's throne room, we get the ending of 2001: A Space Odyssey. The ending of 2001 is good, but it's not a good ending to all movies.
Compel wrote: Did Harbie even have any lines in ME3? I can't even remember...
I don't believe so, he just flies in near the end, blasts some stuff, and that's pretty much it IIRC. It's been like three years since I played ME3 so I could be forgetting something, but I don't recall anything else from Harbinger.
mattyrm wrote: This conversation is far too deep and meaningful for me, my issue with ME:3 was a very very simple one.
What was the point in the hundreds of decisions I made, when everybody dies in the end anyway?
Save the geth, they all die anyway. Save the Quarians, they all die anyway. Save the earth, its fethed anyway. Cure the genophage, feth it everyone dies anyway.
It seemed to me to ride roughshod over the illusion of choice I had throughout the series!
The real world is miserable enough as it is, I like my fiction to at least have a solid happy ending. I wanted to feth off and retire with my space spouse in a nice cottage somewhere exotic, not choose between turning the galaxy into mutants or kill absolutely everyone.
News flash: Everything dies. This is the natural end of all life. That you thought you had a real choice in your actions is one of the greatest jokes of existence. Free will? Your mind is a computer that functions on chemical reactions. Your sense of free will is an illusion. You are, in fact, simply reacting based on primate evolutionary cues.
In fiction? In my ending, Shep goes out the best possible way she can. She saves the galaxy, destroys the Reapers and their Relays. Her crew (and members of many other species) survive to rebuild the future. Shepherd? I'm left to wander the ruins of Earth alone until my dying day. Mine is a tale bards will sing in the era-to-come. Not quite a true apocalypse, for much has survived and, most importantly, the knowledge of how to build things, how to work with Element-Zero, how to procure it, where to find it.... it isn't as if they're going back to the Stone Age. Best of all? I left them with evidence of what could happen, in the hopes that future generations will know to be wary, and not make the same mistakes we did.
In my head-canon ending Garrus turns up to hold Shepard, slowly bleeding out on the deck of the Crucible, as they watch all they have worked for finally come to pass . Their war is finally over, though, like many soldiers in countless conflicts throughout time, they will not get to take part in the rebuilding.
They just sit together and watch the war end.
"I think I'm ready to storm those gates, Garrus Vakarian."
"Wherever you go, commander, I follow."
"You always were a damn fine soldier Vakarian but I don't think this is a time when you can look out for me through your sniper scope."
"I learnt from the best and know this, Shepard, I will follow you and, no matter the odds, no matter the enemy, nothing shall stop me from finding you again."
Vaktathi wrote: Only if you project things from ME3 back onto earlier games
So you don't like mystery stories then?
A lot of things in mystery books only make sense later on in the story. But putting the pieces together from across the beginning, middle, and end of the story, they make sense in the end, when you confront the finale.
OK now I'm beginning to think you're just being purposefully obtuse to get a rise out of Vak.
Foreshadowing requires intent on the part of the writer. The lead writer has publicly stated that the finale of the story which was in the minds of the writing team while they were writing the first and second games was not the ending the series was eventually given. It is therefore impossible for there to be foreshadowing of the ending in the first two games. Indeed we know for a fact that they were foreshadowing an entirely different outcome in the first two games.
Now, you can work backwards with hindsight from the ending we eventually got and rationalise the events of the first two games, providing you're willing to ignore a few plotholes and the foreshadowing for the originally intended conclusion of the storyline(that's obviously possible since it's what the lead writer of ME3 did), but it must be acknowledged that that's what you're doing, and also that what you're doing is scarcely more "legitimate" than people who prefer to rationalise the ending of ME3 as the result of Indoctrination. You're choosing to rework the story to fit the ending, as Bioware did, they're choosing to rework the ending to fit the story.
Since, once again this is the crux of your argument, I'll repeat myself: don't care.
No it wasn't, I was addressing the logical pitfall of your statement, and you actively and completely ignored and did not respond in any way to anything else I talked about.
Like this whole section.
Spoiler:
Vaktathi wrote:Ok, lets go back to the direct narrative once again. The fact that the ending plays out with largely no regards to your previous choices or decisions (and is pretty much entirely simply based on volume of content completion of the last leg of the trilogy) is extremely disconnecting, particularly in that they only affect the different buttons you get to push. The game's ultimate ending is entirely disconnected from the narrative of the rest of the game, and your option to control the reapers or synthesize a new paradigm is dependent on...how big a fleet you bring to earth? And that this is largely determined simply by a certain level of ME3 content completion and has nothing to do with *how* you accomplish any of that? That's an issue.
You can fundamentally disprove the Reapers logic by negotiating peace between the Geth and the Quarrians or not but the ending doesn't change You can doom the Krogan to slow death or not, doesn't change how the end plays out. You can save the Rachni or not, doesn't change how the game ends. Your encounter with the Illusive Man has no effect on how the game ends. The survival and makeup of the Galactic Council is utterly irrelevant to the game's outcome. Bringing the Batarians back into the fold changes nothing. The fate of the Shadow Broker changes nothing. At best these things simply change the War Assets number slightly, and the *only* thing that changes is the buttons that you are allowed to push.
The platform scene is completely independent of the rest of trilogy beyond what doors you get the choice to open, and even that can be accomplished without anything from ME1 or ME2 playing into that and only completing certain parts of ME3, the choices and decisions being largely irrelevant. (in a game where the overriding narrative had always ostensibly relied heavily on player decisions).
This is of course also ignoring the awkwardness of the hamfisted in "readiness rating" dependent on playing multiplayer...
Lets put it in another perspective.
What made this ending work in Deus Ex was that your choice was the answer to a fundamental question that was continually asked throughout the entire story "How should society be governed?/how should civilization operate?" Through control of all-encompassing AI in the hands of a privileged secret cabal? by the people operating at local cooperative levels without AI or Cabals? Through a new paradigm with a new human/AI hybrid God?
Throughout the Mass Effect series, your goal is the stop the Reapers from obliterating and killing all existing sentient life in the galaxy, largely through military means. Even setting aside the absurdity of the circular logic their premise is built on, you aren't presented with the parallel of the above question as the central focus of the story until the very end of the last game, at which point the narrative shifts on a dime from "stop the reapers militarily" to "answer a god-like AI's philosophical quandary".
The idea of "Organics vs Synthetics" was not the core overriding narrative theme through the game, in fact, you spend a whole lot more time fighting organics than you do synthetics, and the synthetic threat comes almost exclusively as a result of the Reapers actions (including the Heretic Geth who otherwise were content to sit off not bothering anyone).
Thus, in Deus Ex you answer a question fundamental throughout the whole narrative, in ME3 the narrative snap-focuses to a narrow tangent line in the last 10 minutes, a tangent that was almost entirely a self-referencing problem with the opposing entity in the first place, and that you could fundamentally prove an unnecessary question by the the players actions, long before the question is ever directly put them (but doing so has no real effect either).
Ultimately, we started the discussion on why the ME3 ending was narratively disconnected from the rest of the ME trilogy story through direct parallels to the exact same scene in another game, direct hints to a different ending dropped in ME2 about a different ending, statements from the writer of the first two ME games that they were going towards a different ending originally, and the fact that nothing about the ultimate ending is dependent on any of the decisions made throughout the rest of the narrative only a certain level of content completion to unlock different buttons. There's a lot there to cause people to feel like the ME3 ending was inappropriate and disconnected relative to the rest of the trilogy's narrative and that there are reason for that feeling beyond just "well you're just complaining".
Melissia wrote:I'm bored of this conversation.
Probably because you keep ignoring most of it only to tell us how much you don't care about (as opposed to anything actually being wrong with) one particular argument.
Yodhrin wrote: Foreshadowing requires intent on the part of the writer.
No it doesn't. You only require some indication or forewarning of future events. And we got that.
Honestly at this point, I'm wondering if you guys are arguing in good faith, so I'm going to bow out before I piss the mods off again.
So you are saying that author 1 predicted author 2's story and foreshadowed for real, as in actually predicted the future?
No but it is possible that author 2 took some elements from author 1 and turned those elements into foreshadowing (retrospectively) of events that they were writing.
As narrative elements, it doesn't matter whether you planned the foreshadowing or not, if the link is there then it can be foreshadowing.
Yodhrin wrote: Foreshadowing requires intent on the part of the writer.
No it doesn't. You only require some indication or forewarning of future events. And we got that.
Honestly at this point, I'm wondering if you guys are arguing in good faith, so I'm going to bow out before I piss the mods off again.
So you are saying that author 1 predicted author 2's story and foreshadowed for real, as in actually predicted the future?
No but it is possible that author 2 took some elements from author 1 and turned those elements into foreshadowing (retrospectively) of events that they were writing.
As narrative elements, it doesn't matter whether you planned the foreshadowing or not, if the link is there then it can be foreshadowing.
True it can work backwards, but I thought the initial argument was "I saw these things coming from the first game." That is the bit that is wrong.
True it can work backwards, but I thought the initial argument was "I saw these things coming from the first game." That is the bit that is wrong.
I wouldn't say it is wrong, per se. Different people will see different things as foreshadowing or read into what a character does or says in a different way. So it is possible that Melissia did see certain elements in the first game and took them to mean things other than what the initial author intended. In this sense, if what Melissia interpreted from the first game had more in common with the elements in ME3 than what the initial author had intended (ie Dark Matter plot), then it would be a valid viewpoint to say that these elements were hinted at in previous games.
Like a lot of art, peoples opinions will depend heavily on their own personal interpretations and points of view.
Yodhrin wrote: Foreshadowing requires intent on the part of the writer.
No it doesn't. You only require some indication or forewarning of future events. And we got that.
Honestly at this point, I'm wondering if you guys are arguing in good faith, so I'm going to bow out before I piss the mods off again.
[Edited to tone my comment down, I overreacted].
Not arguing in good faith? That's exactly how I'd describe your contributions to the discussion, so that's rather hypocritical of you to complain about. Only one person has been moderated here.
True it can work backwards, but I thought the initial argument was "I saw these things coming from the first game." That is the bit that is wrong.
I wouldn't say it is wrong, per se. Different people will see different things as foreshadowing or read into what a character does or says in a different way. So it is possible that Melissia did see certain elements in the first game and took them to mean things other than what the initial author intended. In this sense, if what Melissia interpreted from the first game had more in common with the elements in ME3 than what the initial author had intended (ie Dark Matter plot), then it would be a valid viewpoint to say that these elements were hinted at in previous games.
Like a lot of art, peoples opinions will depend heavily on their own personal interpretations and points of view.
So the Indoctrination Theory is equally valid?
The oily black shadow hallucinations, whispering voices and eery dreams...they're all listed in the Codex as symptoms of indoctrination. Is it a coincidence that a variation of the Destroy ending (high EMS) has Shepard apparently breathing/waking up, buried under rubble?
Coincidence? I don't believe that's a coincidence at all, as I'm under the impression that the "Shepard lives" ending is due (in part) to high Paragon status.
Psienesis wrote: Coincidence? I don't believe that's a coincidence at all, as I'm under the impression that the "Shepard lives" ending is due (in part) to high Paragon status.
No, it's purely connected to galactic readiness and EMS.
Psienesis wrote: Coincidence? I don't believe that's a coincidence at all, as I'm under the impression that the "Shepard lives" ending is due (in part) to high Paragon status.
No, it's purely connected to galactic readiness and EMS.
And the Destroy Ending.
Staying true to Shepard's original mission, achieving what she set out to do long ago on Eden Prime: destroy the Reapers, save the galaxy. Not falling prey to Indoctrination (Synthesis) or the temptation to seize power and become a God (Control).
Can you tell which ending I chose yet?
For what its worth, I did enjoy Mass Effect 3 overall. I just didn't think it was a fitting ending to the trilogy. Too many plot holes and internal inconsistencies (if canonically Shepard is not indoctrinated, in the process of indoctrination and is somehow completely immune to indoctrination, then why the feth did the writers have her suffer the symptoms of Indoctrination as described in the games' in game lore Codex???). And as Vaktathi said, the overall storyline of the trilogy went on an abrupt tangent when the writer was replaced.
Psienesis wrote: Coincidence? I don't believe that's a coincidence at all, as I'm under the impression that the "Shepard lives" ending is due (in part) to high Paragon status.
No, it's purely connected to galactic readiness and EMS.
And the Destroy Ending.
Staying true to Shepard's original mission, achieving what she set out to do long ago on Eden Prime: destroy the Reapers, save the galaxy. Not falling prey to Indoctrination (Synthesis) or the temptation to seize power and become a God (Control).
Can you tell which ending I chose yet?
Getting the gist, yeah
I always thought Destroy was the best. Yes it did mean sacrificing the Geth, which is sad. The Geth joined with everyone else, however, fully understanding that it could mean their total destruction. In a choice between the Geth dying so that others might live and everyone being forcibly changed on a genetic level... Well, the loss of one race is the smaller price to pay.
(My Shepard was never going to try to control the Reapers. What evidence does she have that she actually could?)
See, I'm not entirely we can really trust any of the endings. Given that Shepard was experiencing the symptoms of Indoctrination, its reasonable to posit that theres a degree of "Unreliable Narrator".
Melissia chooses to subjectively interpret post-hoc the first two games as foreshadowing the ME3 ending written by writer #2 (Crucible) despite all the evidence to the contrary that those games were written with the Dark Matter thingy ending in mind.
I choose to subjectively interpret the ME3 as Indoctrination. It has about as much evidence and "foreshadowing" as the Crucible did.
If the Indoctrination Theory is absolutely 100% not true, Shepard is somehow immune to Indoctrination and the replacement writer didn't want to give the impression that it might have credibility, then it was bad writing. Its as if the writer forgot that in game Lore had already established certain things as symptoms - oily black shadows, whispering voices, hallucinations and dreams - and just chose to throw them for dramatic effect, ignorant of their signifiance.
And Melissia referenced Tolkien and said something about "Intent isn't important". Yes, its true that when he wrote his first stories, in particular the Hobbit, he did not intend at the time to create an entire universe. He did not intend or plan the ending of the LOTR from the very beginning. But he didn't leave the original books intact. As the Middle Earth universe grew, he went back and revised and retconned earlier books to remove plot holes and internal inconsistencies to bring them in line with later books, so that the entire series made sense.
That is something that Mass Effect sorely needs. The original 2 games were written with ending A in mind, but then the writer was replaced and his successor went with a tangential ending B instead. That leaves a large degree of plot holes and foreshadowing in the first two games pointing to an ending that was cut.
Same thing with GRRM (Game of Thrones) and the R+L=J thing. Its been so heavily foreshadowed, that for it to not be true would be to render large parts of his writing nonsensical.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Anyway, back on topic.
This Mass Effect Andromeda. Its set in a new galaxy right? With a Wild West vibe? Earth is saved, the Reapers are defeated and the galaxy is at peace; so humanity is now reaching out and exploring the rest of the universe? That seems like it might be inspired in part by Wild West in Space stories, like Firefly, and Stargate Universe (in terms of isolation, being on the frontier beyond the edge of known space). Those are two shows I loved. And both were cancelled far too early.
If thats the general theme of the game, then I revise my first impression of the trailer. I like it! Space Cowboys in Space.
Same thing with GRRM (Game of Thrones) and theR+L=J thing. Its been so heavily foreshadowed, that it to not be true would be to render large parts of his writing nonsensical.
It's... um.... probably not true.
This Mass Effect Andromeda. Its set in a new galaxy right? With a Wild West vibe? Earth is saved, the Reapers are defeated and the galaxy is at peace; so humanity is now reaching out and exploring the rest of the universe? That seems like it might be inspired in part by Wild West in Space stories, like Firefly, and Stargate Universe (in terms of isolation, being on the frontier beyond the edge of known space). Those are two shows I loved. And both were cancelled far too early.
Yes. Yes. Maybe. Maybe. Probably not. Maybe.
That is to say, Andromeda might be concurrent to the stories being told in the original trilogy, but be so far away (another galaxy is pretty freakin' far) that what goes on back in the Milky Way just isn't at all relevant. At least, not yet.
Psienesis wrote: News flash: Everything dies. This is the natural end of all life. That you thought you had a real choice in your actions is one of the greatest jokes of existence. Free will? Your mind is a computer that functions on chemical reactions. Your sense of free will is an illusion. You are, in fact, simply reacting based on primate evolutionary cues.
Psienesis wrote: News flash: Everything dies. This is the natural end of all life. That you thought you had a real choice in your actions is one of the greatest jokes of existence. Free will? Your mind is a computer that functions on chemical reactions. Your sense of free will is an illusion. You are, in fact, simply reacting based on primate evolutionary cues.
I would agree with the premise if we lived to be twenty, as it stands I think just because we will eventually die, doesnt mean we dont have any "real" choice, because standing on a landmine at 17 sucks a lot more than dying in your sleep at 107.
Trailer looks... interesting. Part of me's thinking it won't feel as strong as the first three games story - wise, but it looks like they're trying a few new things, which is getting my hopes up. It looks like they might try varying up the planets a bit, which also sounds kind of cool in my opinion.
